Mitchell McClenaghan is a left-arm fast bowler who made his first-class debut with Central Districts, but his career took off when he moved to Auckland in the 2011-12 season. In his first List A match with them, he took 5 for 30 against Northern Districts, and then followed that with 6 for 41 in his next match, against Wellington. He took 16 wickets in six List A matches that season, and 35 in ten first-class games. His reward was a place in the New Zealand squad on the tour to South Africa in 2012-13, and in his first ODI he returned excellent figures of 4 for 20, becoming only the second New Zealander, after Dayle Hadlee, to take four wickets on ODI debut.

When he was with Central Districts, though, he was only intermittently part of the state team. His brightest moment during that phase came when, playing for New Zealand Emerging Players, he took 5 for 36 against an England Lions line-up that included Jonathan Trott, Robert Key and Eoin Morgan. He was included in Central Districts' squad for the Champions League despite not playing a single match in the HRV Cup, New Zealand's domestic Twenty20 competition, in the 2009-10 season. ESPNcricinfo staff